Undergraduate Course: Late Latin: Autobiographical Narratives from the 4th and 5th Centuries AD (LATI10025)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course is centred on three of the best writers of Late Antiquity. It will focus on passages of first person narrative in Ammianus Marcellinus, Augustine, and Rutilius Namatianus.
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| Course description |
The course is centred on three of the best writers of Late Antiquity. It will focus on passages of first person narrative. Ammianus Marcellinus, one of the greatest Roman historians, tells with striking vividness of the astonishing dangers he experienced as a young army officer during the Persian invasion of AD 359; Augustine of Hippo, a brilliant rhetorician, recalls the events which led to his baptism in Milan cathedral by Ambrose in AD 387 and which therefore changed the history of Christian thought; and Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, a distinguished pagan courtier and ex-Prefect of Rome, interweaves an elegant poem describing his sea-journey home to Gaul in the autumn of AD 417 with musings on Rome's eternity and her recovery from Gothic attacks. The approach will be an interdisciplinary one, aiming to compensate for the neglect of these texts by literary Latinists but also looking at the wider historical context and implications.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should usually have at least 3 courses in Classics related subject matter(at least 2 of which should be in Latin) at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this) for entry to this course. We will only consider University/College level courses but Elementary ot Intermediate Latin courses will not count. Students beyond Intermediate level but with less Latin than the prerequisite should consider taking either Latin 2a/2b. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- demonstrate, in class discussion, coursework and examination as required, that they have read Rutilius Namatianus and selections from Ammianus and Augustine in Latin, and have a thorough knowledge of the language, styles and content of the texts;
- demonstrate, in class discussion, coursework and examination as required, that they are acquainted with the social, political and religious background;
- demonstrate, in class discussion, coursework and examination as required, that they are aware of the particular problems with reading autobiography;
- demonstrate, in class discussion, coursework and examination as required, that they are aware of various modes of representing thoughts formulated in the context of one language and culture through the medium of another language in a different cultural context;
- demonstrate, in class discussion, coursework and examination as required, that that they are able to deploy and to engage in dialogue with relevant scholarship.
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Reading List
Editions of the texts will be available for download, with a skeleton commentary on Rutilius and Ammianus by the course organiser.
P.R.L. Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London, 1967)
J.J. O'Donnell (ed., comm.), Augustine The Confessions (3 vols, Oxford, 1992)
G.A.J. Kelly, Ammianus Marcellinus: The Allusive Historian (Cambridge, 2008), esp. 33-104.
J.F. Matthews, The Roman Empire of Ammianus (London, 1989) [esp. chapters IV, XIII]
F. Paschoud, '"Se non è vero, è ben trovato": Tradition littéraire et vérité historique chez Ammien Marcellin', Chiron 19 (1989), 37-54
E. Wolff, with S. Lancel and J. Soler, Rutilius Namatianus, sur son retour (Paris, 2007)
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Special Arrangements |
In order for a student from outwith Classics to be enrolled on this course, contact must be made with a Course Secretary on 50 3580 in order for approval to be obtained. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Gavin Kelly
Tel: (0131 6)50 3581
Email: Gavin.Kelly@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Toni Wigglesworth
Tel: (0131 6)50 3580
Email: Toni.Wigglesworth@ed.ac.uk |
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